An Automated GIS Procedure for Delineating River and Lake Boundaries

Digitization of river and lake boundaries is an essential task in several hydrologic studies, which, in most cases, is performed manually by using aerial photographs. This paper presents an automatic geographic information system (GIS) procedure for delineating river and lake boundaries using aerial photographs. The GIS procedure is based on supervised classification of aerial photographs by using the National Hydrography Dataset (NHD) for creating training areas. Four study areas – Lake Palestine in Texas, Brazos River in Texas, Neuse River in North Carolina, and Snake River in Idaho – are used to demonstrate the approach. The results from the automatic boundary delineation process are evaluated by comparing them to manually digitized boundaries. The boundaries delineated by the automatic procedure matched the manually digitized boundaries with an overall difference of less than five percent in terms of area measurement. Besides saving about 85 percent of manual labor, the GIS procedure provides a consistent way of delineating water bodies, and provides estimation of river channel widths, which, in conjunction with existing NHD data, can be used to estimate average flow depths. Supplementing the regional scale NHD data with local scale attributes such as channel width and depth may lead to increased use of NHD in local scale studies.     

An evaluation of unsupervised and supervised learning algorithms for clustering landscape types in the United States

Knowledge of landscape type can inform cartographic generalization of hydrographic features, because landscape characteristics provide an important geographic context that affects variation in channel geometry, flow pattern, and network configuration. Landscape types are characterized by expansive spatial gradients, lacking abrupt changes between adjacent classes; and as having a limited number of outliers that might confound classification. The US Geological Survey (USGS) is exploring methods to automate generalization of features in the National Hydrography Data set (NHD), to associate specific sequences of processing operations and parameters with specific landscape characteristics, thus obviating manual selection of a unique processing strategy for every NHD watershed unit. A chronology of methods to delineate physiographic regions for the United States is described, including a recent maximum likelihood classification based on seven input variables. This research compares unsupervised and supervised algorithms applied to these seven input variables, to evaluate and possibly refine the recent classification. Evaluation metrics for unsupervised methods include the Davies–Bouldin index, the Silhouette index, and the Dunn index as well as quantization and topographic error metrics. Cross validation and misclassification rate analysis are used to evaluate supervised classification methods. The paper reports the comparative analysis and its impact on the selection of landscape regions. The compared solutions show problems in areas of high landscape diversity. There is some indication that additional input variables, additional classes, or more sophisticated methods can refine the existing classification.     

Area‐preservation Simplification of Polygonal Boundaries by the Use of the Structured Total Least Squares Method with Constraints

This article presents an area‐preservation approach for polygonal boundary simplification by the use of structured total least squares adjustment with constraints (STLSC), with the aim being to maintain the area of the original polygons after the simplification. Traditionally, a simplified line is represented by critical points selected from the original one. However, this study focuses on maintaining the areas of the polygons in the process of simplification of polygonal boundaries. Therefore, the proposed method in this article is a supplement to the existing line simplification methods, and it improves the quality of the simplification of polygonal boundaries in terms of positional and area errors. Based on the sub‐divisions of the original polyline, using the critical points detected from the polyline by the use of line simplification methods, the framework of the proposed method includes three main components, as follows: (1) establishment of the straight‐line‐segment fitting model based on both the critical and intermediate points on the sub‐polyline; (2) introduction of both area and end‐point constraints to reduce the geometric distortions due to the line simplification; and (3) derivation of the solution of boundary simplification by the use of STLSC. An empirical example was conducted to test the applicability of the proposed method. The results showed that: (1) by imposing the linear fitting model on both the critical and intermediate points on the sub‐polylines in the proposed STLSC method, the positional differences between the original points and the simplified line are approximately in a normal distribution; and (2) by introducing both end‐point and area constraints in the proposed STLSC method, the areas of the simplified polygons are the same as those of the original ones at different scales, and the two neighboring fitted lines are connected to each other at the optimized position.     

Adapting Generalization Tools to Physiographic Diversity for the United States National Hydrography Dataset

This paper reports on generalization and data modeling to create reduced scale versions of the National Hydrographic Dataset (NHD) for dissemination through The National Map, the primary data delivery portal for USGS. Our approach distinguishes local differences in physiographic factors, to demonstrate that knowledge about varying terrain (mountainous, hilly or flat) and varying climate (dry or humid) can support decisions about algorithms, parameters, and processing sequences to create generalized, smaller scale data versions which preserve distinct hydrographic patterns in these regions. We work with multiple subbasins of the NHD that provide a range of terrain and climate characteristics. Specifically tailored generalization sequences are used to create simplified versions of the high resolution data, which was compiled for 1:24,000 scale mapping. Results are evaluated cartographically and metrically against a medium resolution benchmark version compiled for 1:100,000, developing coefficients of linear and areal correspondence.     

An open source high-performance solution to extract surface water drainage networks from diverse terrain conditions

This paper describes a workflow for automating the extraction of elevation-derived stream lines using open source tools with parallel computing support and testing the effectiveness of procedures in various terrain conditions within the conterminous United States. Drainage networks are extracted from the US Geological Survey 1/3 arc-second 3D Elevation Program elevation data having a nominal cell size of 10 m. This research demonstrates the utility of open source tools with parallel computing support for extracting connected drainage network patterns and handling depressions in 30 subbasins distributed across humid, dry, and transitional climate regions and in terrain conditions exhibiting a range of slopes. Special attention is given to low-slope terrain, where network connectivity is preserved by generating synthetic stream channels through lake and waterbody polygons. Conflation analysis compares the extracted streams with a 1:24,000-scale National Hydrography Dataset flowline network and shows that similarities are greatest for second- and higher-order tributaries.     

An efficient solution for building polygonal objects

Polygonal object is a fundamental type of geometric data in vector GIS. The key step of cleaning topological relationship after data collection of polygonal layer is to build polygonal objects from digital arcs. The raw digital arcs may intersect with each other. The algorithm for building polygonal objects after the raw arcs have been split at all intersections is presented. The build-up of polygonal objects in this paper is designed to be implemented by two steps. The first step is to extract all the polygons needed for build-up of polygonal objects from arcs. The second step is to organize polygonal objects from these polygons. For the first step, a tracing algorithm is proposed. The algorithm merely extracts the polygons needed for the build-up of polygonal objects, which is a subset of all the possible polygons that can be induced from the arcs. For the second step, an algorithm based on a specially designed order of polygons is advanced. All the topological relationships among the polygons are sho     

An efficient solution for building polygonal objects

Polygonal object is a fundamental type of geometric data in vector GIS. The key step cleaning topological relationship after data collection of polygonal layer is to build polygonal objects from digital arcs. The raw digital arcs may intersect with each other. The algorithm for building polygonal objects after the raw arcs have been split at all intersections is presented. The build-up of polygonal objects in this paper is designed to be implemented by two steps. The first step is to extract all the polygons needed for build-up of polygonal objects from arcs. The second step is to organize polygonal objects from these polygons. For the first step, a tracing algorithm is proposed. The algorithm merely extracts the polygons needed for the build-up of polygonal objects, which is a subset of all the possible polygons that can be induced from the arcs. For the second step, an algorithm based on a specially designed order of polygons is advanced. All the topological relationships among the polygons are shown in a single scan. Experiments show that the two algorithms together offer a robust and efficient solution for building polygonal objects from intersected arcs.     

矢量居民地多边形多级图划分聚类方法

针对复杂居民地多边形的信息挖掘问题,提出了一种多级图划分聚类分析方法,构造居民地多边形的图模型,并通过对图模型进行粗化匹配与重构、初始化分和细化得到聚类结果.首先构建研究区域内居民地建筑物的Delaunay三角网,生成包含研究对象之间的邻接信息图;然后结合空间认知准则和人类认知的特点,采用形状狭长度、面积比、凹凸性、距...     

简单多边形间最大距离的求解算法

求解任意两个简单多边形间的最大距离,在几何图形计算中,一直是一个基本问题。在对多边形自身的特性以及两多边形间关系进行深入分析的基础上,提出了一个基于折线凸包的单调性的简单多边形间最大距离的求解算法。根据封闭折线内部所具有的特性,把封闭折线拆分成两个断开的折线,使一条折线在另一条折线左边。两个多边形分别被拆分成四条折线,两个分为一组。分别求出每组中两条折线的凸包,利用凸包的单调性可以快速地找出两个距离最远的顶点,其中较大的是两个简单多边形间的最大距离。算法的时间复杂度是线性的。     

一种支持城市路网交通关系自动化的智能模型

针对车载导航、地图网站等应用中路网要素之间交通关系维护的难题,提出一种支持路网要素交通关系自动化的智能过程模型,将路网要素交通关系自动化过程理解为由路网要素间的空间和语义关系、规则集和控制系统组成的产生式系统.该产生式系统可在路网要素空间和语义信息基础上,通过定义可扩展的交通关系规则集,自动化地生成符合应用需求的路网要素间的交通关系.此外,在该产生式系统中引入触发器概念监控和响应几何网络及其交通关系规则集的变更,实时更新逻辑网络中的连通关系信息,实现几何网络、规则集和逻辑网络三者的一致性.同时,提出路网要素交通关系处理的控制策略和关键流程,并对该智能网络模型的有效性进行了验证.

Abstract：

Maintaining the traffic connectivity relations between road features has always been a time consuming task for in-vehicle navigation, map website, and other traveling service related applications. Such a task has been commonly conducted artificially and inevitably inefficient, yet makes data quality control difficult. Considering the intrinsic rules of traffic connectivity formed by the geometrical structures, spatial and semantic relationships between road features in city road networks, an intelligent processing model is set forward in this paper for traffic connectivity automation. It is argued that traffic connectivity automation between road features is fundamentally a production system composed of the spatial and semantic relations between road features, connectivity rules and control system. With the implementation of an extendable connectivity rule set, the traffic connectivity relations between road network features are built automatically based on the spatial and semantic information of road network. The trigger concept is adopted to monitor and respond the changes in geometrical network and connectivity rules, and then dynamically updates the traffic connectivity between road network features in logical network so as to guarantee the consistence between geometrical network, connectivity rules and logical network. A series of control strategies and a conducting engine are developed to maintain the traffic connectivity relations. A case study conducted on a real road network verifies the effects of the proposed intelligent model.     

GIS-based analysis of obesity and the built environment in the US

This paper examines the statewide relationship between built environment and obesity at the county scale by using the Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR) method. The independent variables include three built environment factors – street connectivity, walk score, fast-food/full-service restaurants ratio – and two sociodemographic variables, race heterogeneity and poverty rate. The urban influence is considered as a covariate in the analysis. Through the regression model we found that walk score and street connectivity are negatively related to obesity, poverty rate and metro are positively related, and the fast-food/full-service restaurants ratio is not significant. A regionalization method is used to group US counties to regions based on their GWR coefficients. Qualitative inferences of policies are made available to facilitate better understanding of the obesity problem associated with the built environment in these regions.     

Assessing polygon edge integrity

Geographic entities are represented in vector GIS as geometric objects with definite position and sharp, zero or one-dimensional, boundaries. This representation ignores, and may in fact misrepresent, the underlying properties of many geographic features. This paper considers a binary classification scheme for ill-defined edges recently suggested by Couclelis (1996). Three initial perspectives of edge indeterminacy are considered for woodland polygons, namely functionally defined, using Hamming distances of the indeterminacy properties, and using the weighted trace of the connectivity matrix that defines the simplicial complex created from the indeterminacy relationships among the woodland polygons and their adjacent polygons. Finally, an analysis of the relationships created by the binary coding is carried out by examining more closely the connectivity structure of the simplicial complexes. The usefulness of the approach is discussed in the context of woodland habitat. Received: 20 March 1999/Accepted: 7 September 1999     

Creating Mountains out of Mole Hills: Automatic Identification of Hills and Ranges Using Morphometric Analysis

This article examines the relationship between scale of observation and landform features and their representation in map form. The research is premised on the idea that large scale features are defined by the smaller features that comprise them (that mountain ranges are a collection of clustered yet individually identifiable mountains or hills). In preference to subjective selection of the higher order features, we propose a methodology for automatically discerning mountain ranges as well as the smaller hills that constitute them. A mountainous region can be defined by its prominence (relative height among surrounding features) and various morphological characteristics including the variability in morphology. The algorithm presented here uses derivatives of elevation and the density of morphological properties in order to automatically identify individual hills or mountains and ranges together with their extents. Being able to create generalised views of landscape morphology is considered to be part of the model generalisation process and is an essential prerequisite to spatial query and to the cartographic portrayal of these features at a range of scales (levels of detail). For the purposes of evaluation the algorithm was applied to the hills around Edinburgh city and the hills and ranges around Fort William, Scotland. The research reflects on the challenge of defining the subjective nature of what is a ‘hill’ or a ‘mountain’, but reminds us that a map seeks to capture the essence and characteristic form of the landscape – something that is necessarily fuzzy and scale dependent.     

1∶250000水系要素综合缩编技术方法

针对国家空间数据基础设施建设的需求,本文介绍了适应于不同空间特征水系的河流选取、湖泊合并、毗邻等基本综合操作,并提取水系综合相关算法和技术思想,结合地形数据的基本特点及应用需求,给出了一套可行的1∶250 000水系综合实施策略。所研究的成果可应用于小比例尺地形数据的综合生产任务。     

基于二叉树思想的任意多边形三角剖分递归算法

提出了一种基于二叉树思想的任意多边形三角剖分递归算法。该算法采用二叉树思想，确定剖分三角形的二叉树状结构，并采用递归算法实现。这算法可适用于任意形状的凹或凸多边形，也适用于包含岛屿的多边形。此外，在考虑边界点高程的基础上，可充分顾及地形特征。该算法完全适用于长距离河流流域的三维面状表达。     

基于分形理论的水系要素制图综合研究

在研究水系要素具有分形现象的基础上，提出了水系要素的分维数的确定方法，并利用水系的分数维规律进行地图制图综合，取到了较好的结果。     

A method to generalize stream flowlines in small-scale maps by a variable flow-based pruning threshold

The aim of this paper is to explore and describe a method of automated generalization designed to produce a map which strikes a balance between cartographic and hydrologic representations. Following a discussion of scholarly literature on generalization, we describe a novel method for automated generalization of hydrographic stream data, using the National Hydrography Data Set (NHDPlus) as an example.

Traditional hydrography shows a fairly uniform density of stream flowlines over space. While this is pleasing to the eye, traditional methods tend to under-represent rivers in humid areas and over-represent them in arid areas. We address this problem through a method in automated generalization to produce a high-quality presentation of hydrographic data, suitable for display as a wall map or in an atlas. Streams are pruned based on a variable flow threshold, derived from the local mean annual precipitation by a regression equation.

After running the model using different parameters, we produce a more satisfactory portrayal of stream networks in the United States that communicates the flow of water through rivers and reflects the regional climate. Specific advantages in generalizing with variable flow threshold include (1) the method allows for fine gradations in output scale; (2) the output maps tend to minimize density variations in the raw data; (3) the subjective criteria are easily derived; and (4) the method can be performed rapidly on large data sets, as long as the stream data has been enriched with reliable flow rates.     

建筑物白模多边形的自动合并

建筑物白模多边形数据可广泛应用于许多领域,但在实际应用中,由于数据太过细致,且目前使用的建筑物白模多边形数据存在拓扑关系错误,不满足生产要求,这给地图综合中建筑物群的自动合并提出了新的要求.因此提出了一种基于约束性Delaunay三角网的建筑物白模多边形自动合并方法,在保持建筑物整体结构和视觉效果的前提下减少不必要的细...     

Proximity-based grouping of buildings in urban blocks: a comparison of four algorithms

Grouping of buildings based on proximity is a pre-processing step of urban pattern (structure) recognition for contextual cartographic generalization. This paper presents a comparison of grouping algorithms for polygonal buildings in urban blocks. Four clustering algorithms, Minimum Spanning Tree (MST), Density-Based Spatial Clustering Application with Noise (DBSCAN), CHAMELEON and Adaptive Spatial Clustering based on Delaunay Triangulation (ASCDT) are reviewed and analysed to detect building groups. The success of the algorithms is evaluated based on group distribution characteristics (i.e. distribution of the buildings in groups) with two methods: S_Dbw and newly proposed Cluster Assessment Circles. A proximity matrix of the nearest distances between the building polygons, and Delaunay triangulation of building vertices are created as an input for the algorithms. A topographic data-set at 1:25,000 scale is used for the experiments. Urban block polygons are created to constrain the clustering processes from topological aspect. Findings of the experiment demonstrate that DBSCAN and ASCDT are superior to CHAMELEON and MST. Among them, MST has exhibited the worst performance for finding meaningful building groups in urban blocks.     

Polygonal Clustering Analysis Using Multilevel Graph‐Partition

Existing methods of spatial data clustering have focused on point data, whose similarity can be easily defined. Due to the complex shapes and alignments of polygons, the similarity between non‐overlapping polygons is important to cluster polygons. This study attempts to present an efficient method to discover clustering patterns of polygons by incorporating spatial cognition principles and multilevel graph partition. Based on spatial cognition on spatial similarity of polygons, four new similarity criteria (i.e. the distance, connectivity, size and shape) are developed to measure the similarity between polygons, and used to visually distinguish those polygons belonging to the same clusters from those to different clusters. The clustering method with multilevel graph‐partition first coarsens the graph of polygons at multiple levels, using the four defined similarities to find clusters with maximum similarity among polygons in the same clusters, then refines the obtained clusters by keeping minimum similarity between different clusters. The presented method is a general algorithm for discovering clustering patterns of polygons and can satisfy various demands by changing the weights of distance, connectivity, size and shape in spatial similarity. The presented method is tested by clustering residential areas and buildings, and the results demonstrate its usefulness and universality.